Morning Buzz: Axe falls on a pointless discrimination

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Buzz for Friday, December 7. It’ll be partly cloudy today witha a high chance of showers and a thunderstorm later in the day. Temperatures are expected to hit 25 in the city and up to 30 in the west. Enjoy your day!​

Same-sex, new country: Axe falls on a pointless discrimination

Like it or not, history will show it was Malcolm Turnbull – a Liberal Prime Minister – who presided over a renovation of the nation's outdated marriage law.

One might have expected such a modernisation to emanate from the left.

Yet perhaps this was the key. Think John Howard forcing new gun laws on a reluctant base or Labor's Paul Keating, dragging unions from the cloisters of centralised wage fixing to enterprise bargaining. Read more

People reported dead amid gunfire at New Mexico high school

Students are led out of Aztec High School after a shooting in Aztec, New Mexico. Photo: AP

​Three people were killed when gunfire erupted early on Thursday at a New Mexico high school, according to media reports.

The Albuquerque Journal reported that the victims are believed to be students.

The shooting happened early Thursday at Aztec High School, a school with about 1000 students near the Colorado border. Read more via SMH

'He has destroyed his life': Teacher jailed for sex with two teenage students

Kurt Majoor has been jailed. Photo: Facebook

A NSW teacher who had sex with two teenage students will spend at least one year and eight months behind bars.

Kurt Majoor, 25, had spent 290 days in jail by the time he faced a sentencing judge at Wollongong District Court, Thursday afternoon. Read more

Man who claimed wife died after jumping on a knife jailed for 25 years

Sharon Michelutti, 48, was murdered by her husband Gavin John De Beyer. Photo: Facebook

Relatives have unleashed a string of profanities at Gavin John De Beyer following his NSW Supreme Court sentence for the stabbing murder of his wife.

De Beyer smiled after people in the public gallery started swearing at him and said "see you in 2035", referring to the date he will be eligible for parole after 19 years in prison.

Paying double: Water bills headed 'same way as energy'

People could be paying a lot more for water in the future. Photo: Brook Mitchell

Urban water users face water bills that will increase by half within a decade and continue to climb without "substantial" reform as rising population and climate change add stress to ageing networks, Infrastructure Australia said in a new report.

The future surge will build on a steady run-up in costs in recent years even as total water consumption has stagnated since the 1980s, with consumers responding to calls for more thrifty use. Read more

RBA finds 85 per cent of apartments and 93 per cent of homes beyond the reach of typical first time Sydney buyers

A typical Sydney first homebuyer can afford just one in every 10 properties in the city and must move an average of 31 kilometres from the central business district to buy a flat and 56 kilometres from the CBD to buy a detached home, a Reserve Bank study has found.

A new housing accessibility index developed by the bank shows the purchasing capacity of the "median potential first homebuyer" in Sydney last year was $474,000. Read more